Sattua - They sell ichthammol at feed stores, right on the shelf. I have some in my animal medicine box.
StG
If you like icky stories and really icky pictures and videos, check out popthatzit.com.
Been there, done that. My husband insisted that he had an ingrown hair on his butt, but when I found a dark spot that I thought was causing the problem, he told me that it wasn’t where it was hurting. I finally had him go to the doctor. Yep, it was one of THOSE cysts. Bill had it removed, and I got to clean it. He’s had no problems with it since, other than a slight anxiety about a recurrence.
My mother would make a poultice of raw grated potato to draw boils. They seemed to work on the ones my Dad would get from time to time.
CVS had ichthammol salve. I’ve got it on right now. I CAN’T WAIT!
Will update in the morning.
I had a pilonidal cyst about 10 years ago, although I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought it was an unusually placed and unusually painful blister. The most agonizing moment happened one night when I was getting out of my car, and I slid my car seat back from the steering wheel too quickly and saw white from the pain.
I drained it myself – every day, several times a day, for about a week, I sterilized a needle and popped it, then pressed lightly on the surrounding tissue. Eventually, the infected-looking blood that emanated from it was replaced by healthy-looking blood, and the thing healed up on its own. It’s been 10 years and I’ve never had another recurrence. knock on wood
My brother had one several years later and had his surgically removed. That’s when I found out in retrospect what my “blister” was – he offered to show it to me before he had it removed (there’s a weird conversation to have with one’s sibling – “Hey, you wanna see my ass?”) and it looked just like what I had had.
A personal message from moejoe of the present to moejoe of 30 seconds ago:
I know it seems like a good idea to google pilonidal cyst…just don’t. Or if you can’t stop yourself from googling it please please do not click that images button ok?
I had an infected boil on my neck, right where it intersects the jaw. I don’t know where it came from: I used to have a “hickey” of sorts on my neck from the chinrest on my violin and I think it may have come from that. I went to the doctor when it got so painful that I could barely turn my head or open my mouth. At that point, it was maybe 1.5 cm in diameter and stuck off my neck just as far. Not big, but wow, I was shocked at how much it hurt.
The doctor was worried about staph and prescribed Bactrim. It worked great, and the thing drained on its own the following night. I woke up in a puddle of pus. Gross.
Then it turned out that I am allergic to sulfa drugs (what Bactrim is), it was noted in my chart from a previous reaction at age 3, and the doc missed it. I of course had no clue, because who remembers what happened when they were 3? I think the subsequent allergic reaction was more miserable than the infection, and I even got lucky in that respect. I noticed a small red dot on my arm one afternoon and thought, “Hmm, that’s interesting. Wonder if it could be the beginning of a hive. I think I’ll skip the next dose.” Sure enough, a few hours later it was fully erupted. I don’t want to think about how bad it could have been if I hadn’t quit taking the stuff. The doctor complimented me for being smart enough to stop the dosage at the first sign of trouble, and my reaction was, “Who the hell wouldn’t?”
Edit: by “fully erupted” I mean hives on every skin surface. I looked like a lobster.
It’s also known as ammonium bituminosulfonate. It doesn’t draw anything out, it just weakens the skin in the area where you apply it.
It’s also antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory. I bet that the anti-inflammatory properties have a lot to do with the “drawing”. Shrinks the skin around the embedded object… for things like splinters.
Report after the first 12-hour application: it didn’t completely come to a head and certainly didn’t burst, but it’s closer than it was before. The thing isn’t getting worse as time goes on, either… more like a large angry pimple than like a boil.
I LOVE the ichthammol salve. I’m going to call it “black ointment”. It’s so… old-fashioned. I feel like Pepys and Johnson must have used it. Any medicine that’s black, you know. “Great black bottles of medicine that you can always pour down the sink”.
…so pliers and a leather strap to bite down on are right out then? 
I’m going to have to get me some of that salve. My chest is a breeding ground for boils :-/
I get a lot of ingrown hairs/sebaceous cysts on my thighs and panty line. I recently discovered that if I fill my bathtub up with the hottest water I can stand and soak my ass in it for about 15 mins, the infections clear up almost immediately and the inflamation goes right down. Sometimes they even drain a bit. And, I get to have a bath!
And now, part of a funny story about salve (the Andy Griffith episode about Opie selling salve, and the hilarious results of Gomer and Barney trying to get them out of it).
Those are for… later. :dubious:
Glad you like it. My parents were always pushing the ichthammol or White’s A&D ointment. Whatever you had one of those would fix it. I still use the A&D but I haven’t had occasion to need the icth.
Just don’t use anything called “black salve”. It makes your nose fall off.
I don’t have any pimple stories to share just now, but just wanted to say how good it is to have another classic thread in the making. I remember the thread in which poor Coldfire, as moderator, was getting so grossed out.
Pimple threads are a classic genre, but really, they’re all just pale imitations of Broomstick’s original MRSA story.
Vincent: Are you sure you can do this?
Sam: [Preparing to perform surgery on himself] Yeah. I once removed a guy’s appendix with a grapefruit spoon.
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent]–Ronin[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]
Stranger
edit Nm, just saw that Broomstick linked it earlier.
Hmm, on one hand, bourbon is the answer to everything. On the other, so are power tools. I am conflicted.
In other news, I have no advice to add, but I would like to say one time I decided to go to war with a pimple on my face, and squeezed it so vigorously that pus and blood squirted out violently from my face, and onto the mirror. It was absolutely disgusting.